A natural kefir culture probably has an even more diverse range of probiotics and may contain most or all of the bugs in your pills. I personally wouldn't be too hung up on your supplement's precise formulation...this is only someone's guess at what you should be ingesting. My personal opinion is that a culture that naturally becomes acclimated to your environment will probably be better for you than anything that comes out of a laboratory.

your response is passive-aggression clumsily hidden by qualifiers. Let's take them out and see how it reads:

A natural kefir culture has an even more diverse range of probiotics and contains most or all of the bugs in your pills. Don't be hung up on your supplement's precise formulation...you shouldn't be digesting the proportion of cultures according to someone's guess. A culture that naturally becomes acclimated to your environment will be better for you than anything that comes out of a laboratory.

That's what you really wanted to say. Passive-aggression hidden by qualifiers is the same as saying DON'T think about a polar bear. (hey, I said "don't")

The "polar bear" is this:

-Asserting that I'm hung up on proportions.

-Telling me what I should or should not digest.

-Saying my original question has no merit because kefir is better than "the bugs in my pills that come from a laboratory".

Wow, that was a really ugly response. I gave you my honest opinion, which I stated as such, and did so in good will. Are you sure you need to take it as a slight when none was intended?

FYI you are speaking to the moderator of this forum.

To answer your merited question in VERY simple terms, NO you will not be able to continue a viable culture by innoculating milk with your pills. This is why I suggested kefir, as it likely contains all the bugs you have listed (and then some X10), and will self-perpetuate.

Well, Tim took the response better than I would have in all honesty. People come here looking for help and advice on fermentation. And when you give it, and get a response like that, now that's just lame. If you are going to criticize the advice given, why even ask? GRRRR.... It just grinds my gears....

Yeah, it's the satisfaction derived from helping the newbies and keeping the site clean so others can learn and teach each other that keeps me sane and happy. I'm always thinking about you guys! Thanks jotomonkey for the positive words!

I just happened upon this thread when googling probiotics, I had to register and write because I am a little confused.

First though, the response was brutal, I truly didn't feel you were attacking that person.

Anyways, I was always under the impression that assuming you had a few live cultures, you sterilized the milk, ie boiled it. The cultures would grow assuming they could use milk as a medium which I thought most lactic acid bacteria could do.

Perhaps it couldn't be done indefinetly as more species would eventually populate, but for a few runs, couldn't bacteria be cultured from a pill?

Joseph, you can certainly culture milk using probiotic tablets, and certainly you should experiment if you feel inclined. But it's hard to say what kind of diversity you're going to get even from the second batch. Many people report having less-than-favorable results trying to perpetuate even simple yogurt on the second go around.

The dynamics of a single fermentation that may only take a few days or weeks is to bacteria what generations of time and change would be to us. A lot changes in the "environment" and the "inhabitants" during this time. Multi-strain cultures that naturally fall into balance and self perpetuate are very special and unique in this regard, and it's highly unlikely that a mix of bacteria designed to be "probiotic" would also, by sheer happenstance, perpetuate diversity.

The original post here outlines percentages of bacteria. They are such because someone decided this is what makes a theoretically proper balance as a dietary supplement. I have little doubt that those percentages will be wildly skewed even from start to finish in a single ferment.